The consumer demand for fresh food and the desire to procure it conveniently is increasing. Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) has been used to reduce perishability during the transport, storage and shelf-life of foods by inhibition of spoilage organisms and other deteriorative processes. MAP is the replacement of the normal atmospheric environment in a food storage package with a single gas or a mixture of gases. There are economic and global waste reduction incentives to eliminate MAP/VAC and the packaging machines and massive quantities of packaging materials currently employed to extend the shelf life of fresh and fresh cooked perishables, including fresh seafood, meat, poultry, bakery goods, prepared meals and entrees and other non-respiring perishables, as well as respiring perishables.
Modified atmospheres (MA) are also employed in non-packaging environments such as refrigerated ocean containers. Some of these systems employ degrees of “intelligence” for adjusting and optimizing the modified atmosphere and are called Controlled Atmosphere (CA) systems. However, the inventor is not aware of any refrigeration-integrated CA systems for non-respiring perishables.
Respiring perishables are often stored and shipped in modified and controlled (“MA/CA”) atmospheres in order to maximize shelf life and “freshness”.
The environmental conditions for optimizing the shelf life of fresh respiring perishables (fruit, vegetables, flowers, plants, etc.) are very different from the conditions for extending the shelf life of fresh non-respiring fresh perishables (meat, fish, poultry, bakery goods, etc.).
Applicant is aware of no MA/CA systems for commercial and bulk shippers of fresh non-respiring perishables. Therefore, many higher value, non-respiring perishables are currently transported by expensive air fright.
A beneficial MAP environment for most retail packages need only extend freshness to the point of being opened, given that the contents are typically consumed shortly thereafter. As a result, the short shelf life available after opening perishables packaged in these conventional MAP (Modified Atmosphere Packages) is not an issue to the end user.
In contrast, the atmosphere requirements for the storage and transport of fresh perishables, that must be further distributed beyond the transport or storage leg of the supply chain, must function to provide extended shelf life of the perishable beyond removal from the MA/CA environment. To date, this capability for CA-integrated systems exists only for respiring perishables.
MAP is also employed for the transport and distribution of large portions or cuts of non-respiring perishables. For example, conventional bulk MAP/VAC (e.g. vacuum “Cryovac” packaging) has worked reasonably well for many primal and sub-primal cuts of fresh meat due to the fact that the meat is either further trimmed and freshly cut for retail and food service sale after removal from the bulk MAP/CAP/VAC environment or sold in the MAP/VAC package to the end user. In addition, there are no regulatory food safety issues with fresh (non-seafood) meat, poultry and other bulk perishables packaged, stored or transported in conventional MAP/VAC environments.
However, fresh seafood is inherently more perishable than many other proteins and is treated differently than other fresh proteins by U.S. food safety regulators (FDA). The FDA regulates the allowable safe times and temperatures that fresh seafood packaged, transported or stored in low-oxygen, MA/CA environments must comply with. The FDA also regulates fresh seafood imported into the U.S. in low-oxygen environments under Import Alert 16-125 (http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert—28.html). These regulations require accurate temperature records and verification of temperature compliance at all times in the supply chain where a low-oxygen environment is employed. Many countries do not regulate the technology as applied to fresh seafood, however; those skilled in the unique art of fresh seafood safety in low-oxygen environments would agree that the U.S. FDA requirements for fresh seafood in low-oxygen environments should be observed regardless of the absence of market regulations (outside the U.S.).
Recently a new MAP/CAP packaging technology was introduced as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,187,653. A system is disclosed for reducing oxygen in MAP/CAP flexible packaging (“totes”) using hydrogen fuel cells. However, U.S. Pat. No. 8,187,653 specifically excludes applications in rigid, refrigerated containers, does not have a refrigeration unit incorporated into the MA/CA container, no automatic, anomaly-mitigating capabilities and no capability of dual use, clean-tech power generation. Also, this technology requires assembling 18 one ton MAP/CAP packages in a specially equipped and staffed cold storage facility. These 18 packages must then be loaded into a refrigerated container for transport. On arrival, unloaded packages that are not opened and held unopened for inventory purposes in low oxygen MA/CA are susceptible to temperature abuse since they have no internal refrigeration capability. At scale, where literally thousands of these packages may be “inventoried” in various global facilities, managing and verifying cold chain integrity is a major food safety management task. The invention herein requires none of these costly intermediate steps and once the container is opened to be unloaded, no additional MA/CA-food safety related management is required as the low oxygen environment is released with the perishables from the refrigeration system integrated MA/CA capability.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,179,986 describes electrochemical oxygen reduction means that can be operated in mechanically refrigerated containers which is not integrated into a refrigerated system. The system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,179,986 is, to applicant's knowledge, not being used.
Virtually all fresh seafood produced outside consuming markets (which is the majority in most cases) is transported by expensive airfreight from remote production areas to fresh markets or transported frozen due to lower price points that eliminate expensive air freight as an economically viable option.
The economic and sustainability benefits available to a provider of the most cost effective solution(s) for extending the freshness of seafood are substantial. Surface transport (by refrigerated ocean containers) produces less than 1/100th the carbon footprint of airfreight. As a result, environmentally concerned seafood supply chain experts are suggesting that all fresh seafood should be frozen to allow for surface transport (replacing expensive and environmentally-more-harmful airfreight). This denies more profitable fresh seafood to global markets and requires expensive and energy intensive freezing processes.
The needs are compelling for methods and systems for the transportation and storage of non-respiring perishables (such as fresh fish) such that fresh food may be delivered to the consumer in a fresh, safe, environmentally sound and economically viable manner.
The present invention addresses these needs.